Loose Lips: A Gay Sea Odyssey

Brennan’s erotic debut, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, is a salacious story of a young man swept into service at sea during WWII. In 1940, a 16-year-old Glaswegian stows away on the first voyage of the Queen Elizabeth. When the trip turns out to be a secret mission, he assumes the name Oliver Turner and seduces married officer Robert Bell into falsifying papers allowing him to stay. After another sailor attempts to blackmail Robert with photos of his and Oliver’s escapades, Robert apparently takes his own life. A heartbroken Oliver then dedicates himself to providing meaningless sexual release for Allied troops traversing the oceans. Aboard another ship, he starts an ongoing relationship with American captain Harris, experiencing tenderness for the first time since Robert. Then Oliver learns that Robert’s suicide was staged. He sets off to find Robert, but the route back is complicated by lingering feelings for Harris and the dangerous, ship-destroying schemes Oliver finds himself caught up in. The period details and connection to historic boat sinkings are intriguing, and Brennan’s idiosyncratic prose is fascinatingly textured, if occasionally distracting. The sex scenes themselves are graphic and kinky but often oddly mechanical, and Oliver’s young age will make many readers balk. There’s an audience for this, but it’s narrow. (Self-published)